Liberty
by thelivinggirl
Summary: AU. Matt and Alfred are twins with a secret; they are in love with each other. Afraid of being seperated, they run away to Liberty Avenue. Incest, underage consensual m/m sex. AmeCan, FranUK, Brian/Justin, Mike/Ben, various other pairings.


**Liberty**

"Alfred_,"_ Matthew sighed softly into his brother's ear, "We've been sleeping on Greyhounds and Peter Pans for days and I'm exhausted. Couldn't we sleep in a motel for one night?"

"Sorry Mattie, no can do," Alfred said tiredly as they boarded yet another bus, heavy circles under his eyes. "I've told you, everything I've read and heard says that motels are way too dangerous."

"But they have locks and everything…"

"People who stay at roadside motels are robbed all the time, not to mention beaten or killed or… other things. Look at it this way; by taking the bus at night as well as in the day, we're getting to Pennsylvania twice as fast, and we're saving money on motels. See? I've thought everything out, Mattie, just go with my amazing plan."

"Okay, I get it," Matthew yawned and rested his head on Alfred's shoulder. They had established that this action was 'safe', meaning that it wasn't too "boyfriendish" for them to do in public. It was perfectly normal for a tired boy to lean against his twin's shoulder.

Alfred sighed and let his head droop over Mattie's, even going so far as to wrap his arm around his shoulder. That was slightly less platonic, but he couldn't help it after going three days with only a quick hand job in the men's restroom for comfort. His brother's hair somehow still retained the scent of maple, Mattie's favorite 'food'.

He closed his eyes as the engine started, trying to ignore the sounds and odors of all the people surrounding them, and felt Mattie's hand slip around his waist and snuggle closer. It was suddenly much easier to focus on nothing but maple and the warm body against him.

*.*.*.*

_A few days previous…_

Arthur unlocked the door and walked into his house warily. Lately, it seemed he couldn't know what to expect when came home. Alfred and Matthew were usually shut away in their room, but just last week he had walked in on them _wrestling_ on the floor of the living room! Like barbarians! They had stopped immediately and dashed up to their room in embarrassment, and the whole event had given him an idea for a little game with Francis that night, but honestly! They were seventeen year old boys, not to mention that Alfred had quite the advantage on meek little Matthew.

"Boys?" he called. "I'm home!"

Arthur paused a beat. No answer.

"Oi! Alfred! Matthew!"

Beat. Beat. Still no answer.

Grumbling, Arthur made his way up the stairs. Pushing open the boys' door – he never did have much respect for their privacy – the first thing he noticed was that the room looked… _clean_. There were no clothes on the floor, the beds were made, and the shelves less cluttered.

Only, the shelves weren't _less cluttered_ as much as _emptier_. Heart rate spiking, he glanced frantically around the room until his eyes fell on a piece of paper folded neatly in half on Matthew's bed. Hands trembling, he carefully opened it.

_Dear Papa and Dad…_

*.*.*.*

Francis raced out of his car into the house. "_Arthur?!"_ His husband had been hysterical on the phone, and Francis had only been able to get that something had happened with Matthew and Alfred.

Charging up the stairs, he checked the bedrooms until he found Arthur curled up on Matthew's bed, hiccupping dry little sobs as with his cheek pressed against the comforter. Francis rushed over and dropped to his knees at the edge of the bed, petting and stroking his husband's face and hair in frantic movements. "Arthur! Arthur, _mon __chéri, que s'est produit?!_" (1) The Englishman simply cried renewed tears and reached out to Francis, clutching around the back of his neck with desperate, almost angry fists.

Francis hefted his husband up while moving onto the bed to better calm him, because frankly, he was out of his head with worry. His mind ran through every scenario that could so completely destroy the stoic English demeanor, and all of them were earth shattering.

"Arthur, _mon amour_, tell me, tell me what's wrong."

Arthur shuddered and gasped for air against Francis' neck before answering, "_They're gone."_ The two words froze the romantic's heart.

"Gone? Gone where? What do you mean?!" The panic was beginning to edge its way into his voice, high and harsh.

Arthur picked up a sheet of paper from the bed and handed it to his husband, who began to read:

_Dear Papa and Dad,_

_It's Matthew writing this, but Al is here too. First off, we want you to know that we love you very, very much. What follows in this letter has nothing to do with not loving you. You adopted both of us, even though you originally only wanted one child, for no other reason than you couldn't pick between us and refused to separate brothers. You raised us and played with us and scolded us and did everything right. You couldn't be better parents._

_Al says I better get on with it now, so here it goes; by the time you get this letter, we'll be long gone. We've packed our bags and left, but it won't be forever, we _promise_. It's only until we're eighteen. Umm, you're probably wondering why we left… I think I'll let Alfred handle this part._

_**Okay, Mattie already established that we love you guys and everything, and that we swear that you didn't go wrong while raising us or anything, so I guess I'll just get to the point;**_

_**Mattie and I love each other. We know it's sick and wrong on tons of levels, but it's the truth. And seriously, we're already gay… okay, I don't think you two knew that either, but I'm not worried about you judging us on that because you two are already… yeah. So. Point being, we're already 'abnormal' in the eyes of a lot of people by being gay, and it's not like we can have any kids with gills or whatever so it's not that bad in the end. And now, back to Mattie, because I'm only good in the 'breaking the news' area and get frustrated trying to find all the right words to explain it.**_

_So back to the reason we aren't here anymore, it's a bit difficult to explain. We obviously know that you love us, and I'm pretty confident that you'll love us in spite of this. But we decided that we (don't be mad!!!) can't trust you not to do something drastic for our sakes. You are pretty accepting about a lot of stuff, but Al and I figured that… I'll just say it, _incest_ would be pushing it, even for you guys, and would probably even scare you and freak you out. Trust me, we would know; for at least two years, we were each struggling with the whole 'how can I feel this way for my brother' thing before we even admitted it to each other. You're probably sad, on some plane of thought, that we didn't come to you when we were all confused about this, but let's face it; while coming out to your parents is almost mainstream now, Hallmark definitely doesn't have a card for telling your parents that you're in love with your brother._

_In the end, we can't trust that you won't separate us or try to keep us away from each other for our own good. And so… we're gone. It's only for ten months, though, so don't freak out! We have enough money from our bank accounts to last us at least a month or two if we make it stretch. I'll make sure Alfred doesn't do anything stupid and I'll do my best to keep him from playing 'the hero' like he likes to. Although I have to say, I do like that part about him. I love everything about him, even the parts I hate, if that makes sense. Okay, Alfred wants to write something now and he doesn't want me to see, so I guess I'm signing off. I love you. We'll send you regular letters just to let you know that we're okay. See you soon._

_Love,_

_Matthew_

_**Mattie'd probably get all huffy if he knew I was writing this, so that's why I didn't want him to see.**_

_**You're probably freaking out a bit more over Matt being gone than you are about me, but I totally understand that because at least I can get myself out of scrapes and fight when I need to. Mattie, on the other hand, is kind of the baby of the family.**_

_**I know that I can make stupid decisions a lot, and I know I don't usually think things through, but I wanted to tell you that I promise to be responsible. I promise to think of the consequences of my actions, because now everything I do affects Matt. I'll take care of Mattie, because no matter what crappy decisions I make for myself, I'd never let anything bad happen to him. You have to believe me because I'm not just saying this about my brother, but about the person I love more than anything.**_

_**When Dad walked in on us 'wrestling' a while back, we realized that we wouldn't be able to keep it a secret for much longer, but we can't afford to take even the small risk of losing each other. Even if you guys manage to contact us somehow and swear up and down that you won't do anything as long as we just come back home, I can't risk losing him if you lie because you think you're doing the right thing. I love you, but Mattie is my top priority.**_

_**So trust me when I say that I've calculated how much money we'll need daily, that I've found a safe area for us to go to, what kind of places would give us jobs, and how to keep our heads down.**_

_**We'll stay safe. I love you.**_

_**Alfred**_

***.*.*.***

1. My darling, what has happened?

A/N: What I wrote about roadside motels are true; if you're thinking about taking an extended roadtrip, try to organize to stay in decent hotels or at least a motel away from the highway. Just spreading around the safety, you know.


End file.
